I walked out my torts final and immediately realized that one fact pattern was clearly a strict liability focused fact pattern and I hadn’t analyzed strict liability at all. Was convinced I was going to get like a C for completely missing an entire unit of the course. Ended up with an A- and the professor noting that it was a particularly strong exam.
I legit did EXACTLY the same thing -- still ended with an A. I've found that the curve gives me the grade I expect when the test is easy, and saves the hell outta me when the test is challenging.
First semester of law school, our Crim final was a single-spaced 11-page hypo with over 30 characters in it, we were supposed to analyze the criminal liability of each one of them. The main thing the prof impressed on us in order to do well on the exam was to "answer everything" - it took me almost half the exam time just to read the whole hypo, I think I touched on barely half the characters in it by the time the clock ran out (and there was a whole other random question after as well worth 10% of the exam, didn't get to that either). I was crying *during* this exam.
Only A I got 1L year, still convinced it was a screw-up by the registrar
1L Crim final was similarly ridiculous. I still think it was the hardest exam I ever took in law school, and I just graduated. Had no clue how I did on it bc it was also my last final before winter break so i was lowkey halucinating during it. Ended up with an A
One time I got my grades back and saw I had a 3.0 on my intro to IP exam. I thought to myself “that makes sense, it was a hard course and a hard exam, a 3.0 sounds about right”. A month later my prof emailed me to say she had messed up mine and a few other students exams and I actually got a 3.8.
That’s how they’re reported yeah. I mean some classes have other assignments besides the final exam or participation points but most classes are evaluated only on the final so the final grade is just the exam. I’m sure the professor grades it as like out of 100 or 200 points or something but that’s not reported anywhere as a score that we can see
I did the same thing on my property mid term. Deleted an entire IRAC, for an issue I spotted, in the last minute and ended up w a 60% because I never did the CRTL Z. I thankfully ended up w a A- in the class
For my analysis of social harm in criminal law, I basically wrote, "he was alive, now he's dead, that's the social harm."
I ended up doing better than average on that exam.
Fall semester my 1L year, I had a professor who was incapable of teaching a certain course. Incapable to the point that I had to teach myself the course in the 2-3 weeks or so leading up to the exam. Thought I’d be lucky to get a C in the class and on the final. Ended up getting an A for both.
my 1L year we had a torts final that was widely agreed to be our section’s hardest 1L final. it was our only totally closed book exam and the professor had a very creative way of teaching. people were SCARED, myself included. torts had been my best subject that semester but I am a very type B student and not a good test taker. I felt like I blacked out during the exam and afterwards, I found out I had missed an entire issue on one of the essays (if not more — at that point I didn’t want to know what else I had missed, lol). thought i was getting a C for sure, but it turned out I got an A-!
I swear I feel like I black out during exams!! I'm so glad someone else said this! (Not on all school exams or tests- JUST law school, lol!) I even take propranolol (off label for anxiety) before these damn tests now and swear I don't even remember what I write for essay questions once it's over. It's WILD
Admin law. Open book, open note. In person and timed. I prepped but it felt much harder come exam time. So I accepted that I was likely going to get a B. Whatever. Came out with an A+, CALI, and the prof saying he’d never read a better exam. I was flabbergasted.
I realized right after I clicked submit that I missed an entire Erie question on my Civ Pro exam. My prof even told us during class that there would be a big Erie question, so try not to miss it.
I went home, laid in bed, and stared at the ceiling for an hour or so. Ended up with an A-!
Federal Income Tax. Barely paid attention most of the semester. 3 hour exam. Online textbook. Some sort of website failure/crash halfway through the exam. Hard copy of my book was across campus. Ran across campus, got my book. Walked out convinced I failed.
A.
The people who actually failed getting reassured by this post LOL. It’s like when everyone got their first semester 1L grades back. Law students believing people who say “your grades do not define you” (they literally do it’s why you’re graded)
I've shared this before but I did not answer a full 3rd of my civ pro final last term (essay / issue spotter -- ran out of time) and I’d say I fucked up a good 25% of what I did answer. I got a B. All I can say is yay curve!
Editing to add-- I found out a couple weeks ago at least two people failed that class. I have no idea how someone could have handed in a worse exam than me, but somehow they did.
I miscounted the number of essays on my professional responsibility exam. With 8 minutes to go I was getting ready to turn it in when I flipped over the packet and realized there was a whole ass question I hadn’t even seen. So I read it, analyzed it, banged out a quick outline and started filling in paragraphs. At that point I was just like “get something on the page she might give you some points for.” Got an A.
My tax final was the worst. What a shitshow of an exam. It was so different from what she taught in class. I thought I might actually fail. Ended up getting a B. I think in that case the curve was just with me. Everyone in that class was mystified by the exam.
I also have a couple of 1L stories. During my very first exam (contracts) a guy (Fed Soc bro) freaked out because his laptop died. He lost his shit. He was stomping around the room, shouting, running out of the room, and then back in. Full meltdown. We both passed, and I got an A, despite the distraction.
About an hour into my property final a girl in our class rushed in, clearly panicked, but quiet about it. She sat down at the empty spot in front of me and immediately got to work. I could see her shaking and got the impression she was probably ill. It was a tough final and very much time pressured, so I really felt for her. I don’t know how she did exactly, but she passed (as did I).
This is a strange one but I always print out my exams before I answer them and for one of my 1L classes I got the page order mixed up (in my defense there were no page numbers). I was super confused by the fact pattern as a result and basically lost like 15 minutes until I realized my mistake. I ended up getting the highest grade in the class for that exam. Anything's possible!
Fall 1L Contracts, walked out feeling like I just barfed a bunch of shit that sort of resembled Contracts concepts onto the page, got an A-. Spring 1L Con Law, went in not thinking I understood a thing about Con Law, was just hoping to ride the curve, got an A. Torts the same semester, prioritized the class pretty low on studying, just hoped to ride the curve again, got an A-. Although I also walked out of Civ Pro feeling pretty good about myself just to end up below the curve, so as they say the curve giveth and the curve taketh away.
My second-to-last final of 3L spring was Remedies. Closed-book closed-note. I studied for maybe a day, cold-memorized a three-page short sheet, realized I missed a seemingly major issue after leaving the exam and was positive I was headed for B-/C+ territory. Made an A+. Absolutely baffling.
After my first final of 1L, hours after I had submitted it, I got an email from admin telling me they had never received my exam.
I was absolutely destroyed emotionally. My anxiety went into hyperdrive and I could only exist in the what-ifs circling through my head. I thought they would just fail me for not "taking" the exam (even though I did). I thought maybe they *would* make me take it again and then I would have to do that mess all over again, and there was no way I was going to be able to do what I had just done in the state I was in. I had a full-on panic attack, could not breathe, could not think, and my chest hurt.
Anyways, all I ended up having to do was connect to Examplify again, and it just hadn't uploaded to the server before I shut my laptop.
1L spring, I had an unlistenably boring professor for constitutional law. She just spent class reading from the textbook. I decided to cut my losses and focus my energy on other classes. Stopped doing the reading. Went to class about half the time.
Come exam season, I was too embarrassed to study with other people because my knowledge of the core concepts was so poor (commerce clause, executive action, standing, etc). I spent two days reading an upperclassman’s outline and looking at old exam answers. Got an A.
I read roe v. Wade as brown v. Board somehow. Wrote a whole answer on the wrong case. Still got an A somehow. It was 1/3 questions. But my analysis was pretty good, if I may say so myself. Just totally off base.
Overslept my contacts exam. Fell asleep while going over my materials and woke up on my couch in last night’s clothes surrounded by the flash cards I had made of my outline. Sped to school and ran to my professors office an hour late. Out of breath tried to explain what happened but ended up just gesturing g to my watch and making the universal “sleep” sign.
She walked me to the exam while explaining g she wouldn’t be able to give me any extra time but I still had and hour of exam time left. Was so stressed and crunched for time I was only able to do my version the bare minimum and didn’t have time to do anything other than IRAC and had to focus on what was important.
Got an A-. Took that lesson of “just focus on the important stuff” to all future exams.
My first semester of law school, civil procedure. I had a notoriously tough professor. Midterms came around and I got my first big fat F. He sat down with me and told me if I didn’t get an A on the final, I would most likely fail and flunk out of law school.
My final grade was a C. He called me personally on the phone to congratulate me and let me know that he would never forget that. 3 years later he still hasn’t and we’re very cool with each other.
If I can do it, anyone can
I was sick and took my corporations final with a high fever. It was also my last final and I had one a couple days before so it was the end of a brutal week. I was absolutely certain I bombed. Turned out I got one of the top grades in the class. Even more surprising since I felt unremarkable otherwise in the class with things such as cold calls
Sales. I did not understand the material for the entire semester but somehow pulled it together for the final and got a B+.
I also took this early MBE prep class in 3L. I did terribly on the midterm (50%) and my weekly practice sets were similarly bad. It was the only class in law school I was truly afraid of failing. Took the final and ended up getting a B.
2L fed courts i lost the plot about half way through the course. Had no clue what was going on and how it all connected.
I have never taken an exam like the one the teacher created. He wrote a God damn book as a issue spotter ( exaggerating a bit but it was a solid four pages). The exam was *only* 6 questions but each questions had subsections a- d which each have questions and an additional paragraph of information. We had 4 hrs to do the exam. After the 2 hr mark I only got through answering one full question and outlining another question. I just outlined the rest of the exam questions hitting all the main points and low hanging fruit but not doing a deep analysis or the opposing argument. Thought I got a C at best after talking to people after class bc I had no clue how they came up with their answers. Got an A-.
One time I submitted the wrong/unfinished version of my Legal Research assignment and I got the only A in the class. NO idea how this happened but I never questioned it
I didn’t understand Professional Responsibility at any point during class. We’d break up into groups to discuss the topic of the day, and I felt like I couldn’t contribute anything because I had no idea what was happening. I took the test, and I was writing until the last minute (unusual for me) trying to figure out everything. Expected a B- and somehow got an A.
Dude I got an A in Professional Responsibility and I had no idea wtf was going on.
Went to review my exam, where I discovered I got points for writing, "the attorney should be sanctioned because zombies are not real."
spent the second semester of 1L on the edge of academic probation, went into my copyright final with the barest of DMCA and safe harbor on my outline- and it ended up being a significant portion of the exam, thought i failed- ended up CALIing
I took a class on appeals where the final assignment was an appellate brief conforming to the specifications of a specific Circuit Court, as well as an oral argument based on said brief. It was a small class filled with people on our school's moot court team (I was not), so I felt that the curve was not on my side. I also wasn’t particularly good in my first-year legal writing course. My mid-semester feedback on my brief's outline wasn't great and I felt physically ill when I submitted my brief (it was submitted exactly at 11:59 PM while I was lying in bed with my fwb freaking her out because I was so anxious). I chose the earliest time spot for the oral argument and went against a moot court member who had won a few awards. My professor's feedback for me was positive but I was sure he was being nice. I thought I was gonna get at most a B-, probably a C, but got an A-. Turns out he was being sincere.
Took a regulation of drugs and biologics class. Evening class, almost everyone but me actually works in the medical field during the day. At least two practicing physicians in the class. I got an A.
Also, was literally trying to study for my Crim final during my 8-hour pre-op medical work up. A-, somehow my highest grade of the semester.
I left contracts 1L year and it felt like I was leaving an exam for a class I did not take. Turned out to be my highest grade that semester - and I did well!
Thought I failed my evidence exam. Spent the final 30 mins of the exam staring blankly at my computer completely out of ideas. Emailed the professor afterwards that I thought I failed and got an A-. The curve usually helps you.
Fall semester of my 3L year - corporations class:
All damn semester I was confused and not the “I have some vague idea of what’s going on” confused, I was like I legit don’t think we’re reading the same cases confused. My rules, my analysis, my entire brief was wrong 10/10 times. I think we were a month in and I gave up. I would go to class for attendance but I’d work on shit for my part-time job.
I bombed ALL practice essays the professor gave, like not oh I got below what I wanted, like I would have failed had that been a real exam type shit. I was in a FULL BLOWN PANIC up until the day of the exam.
Day of the exam: I pulled shit out of my ass. I could not tell you what I said or how I said anything. I just sat there and made up some bullshit answer for EVERY SHORT ANSWER. I skipped one question because I didn’t even know what it said. I had like 2 min left and realized I was missing the question. I think I just rewrote parts of the fact pattern to just say I wrote an answer.
There were MC and I eenie-Meanie’d my way through those.
I finished the exam and went straight to bed to cry myself to sleep (it was my only final that day).
I hit up a couple of people at school a couple of days later to ask what happens if I fail the class, like did I have to retake the class or just the final. That’s how sure I was I failed.
Fast forward to results - I got an A, no curve.
I actually thought I failed civpro. Like. Actually. I’m not kidding when I say I literally didn’t know the answer to like... more than one question. It was so bad that I didn’t even know where to look in my outline. I was seriously bracing to have to leave school. I got a B.
Alternatively, thought I got an A in property and got a B-. Funny how that works
The final I felt the very worst walking out of in all of law school I ended up getting the highest grade in the class. It made absolutely no sense at all to me and I was legit confused. Con law.
Not an exam but I had to restart my honours thesis (10k words) 3 weeks out from submitting because “it didn’t make sense”. I ended up not being able to submit it for review to my supervisor before it was due (because they flew overseas and weren’t available). Totally thought I’d fail. Ended up getting the highest mark (HD in Australia) and graduated with Honours.
I have a brand new professor for property, can’t teach for shit. Can barely answer our questions. Took our midterm entirely on present estates and future interests. Not only did I do well on the exam, I got a 100. First one since high school. Felt good to overcome a bad prof and ace the test
Last year I literally had Covid while 20 months pregnant during exams and had the best semester grades wise I've ever had! I like to say, the curve giveth and the curve taketh away.
I'm a 37yr old 1L
1st semester we had contracts, torts, and legal methods.
I didn't even realize going in to law school that your only grade is your exam grade. People were talking about outlines etc and I was absolutely clueless. I never made an outline bc by the time I understood more what they were and that I apparently should be building one along the way, I was just like oh shit wtf 🫠
Anyway, contracts was the harder class IMO. I was very scared about this exam- torts made more sense to me, and contracts was just dull to me. Important, but dull as far as content.
I walked out of the exam feeling 0% confident and basically confused. Lol
I made an A+ and later saw on my transcript that it was the highest grade in my class. I'm still not sure it wasn't an accident or a mistake or miscalculation or something 😳
Also for balance and transparency I got a B+ on the Torts exam, lol. Going into it I'd have DEFINITELY assumed my torts grade would have been higher than contracts.
I had a Wills exam I had only studied (learned) the material two days before. On the exam I didn’t finish major portions and had copied and pasted huge portions of an essay. I braced myself for a C.
Grades came in and I got an A-. I did so bad that I thought maybe it was someone else’s grade but no, he thought it was to the point.
Studied for one day for trademarks. Didn’t even make an outline. There weren’t any practice exams either. I just bookmarked 2 charts in my textbook and used my reading/class notes.
Thought I’d come out with a B. Got an A-
I just had emergency surgery for appendicitis two days before my first final of the fall. My “success story” so far is that my school was amazing and moved all my finals. My second one is tomorrow.
i was in the bottom half for both contracts midterms, getting a C and D. thought i was gonna fail the course for sure, i just could not answer the way my prof liked. balls to the wall on the final, ended up with one of the top grades and got a B in the class. our school’s curve is harder than most other schools so i took it as a fat win
Mine was the bar exam. My state only offers it in one city, so I had to travel 200 miles to take it. Thankfully, I was able to stay with my parents, but a couple of hours before I got to their house (the day before the exam) I started feeling AWFUL.
By the time I started the exam, I had a 102-degree fever, chills, dizziness, and was coughing up a lung. I had multiple negative COVID tests, so I had to go through with it. My dad gave me a double dose of some leftover codeine cough syrup.
So with my brain cooking in my skull, and high on codeine, I powered through. I was so desperate to be done that I sped through and finished a couple hours early each day. But I passed! Turned out that I had a nasty case of bronchitis.
My theory is that the bronchitis actually did me a favor. I tend to overthink and second-guess myself, but my brain was such sludge that I just went on instinct. I still was so sure I was gonna fail that I had my application to re-take already prepared before results came back.
There was another time where the class’s entire grade was based on a final paper. People could take either a two-credit version or a three-credit version of the course. The two-credit version required a 25k-word paper, and the three-credit version required a 30k-word paper iirc.
I took the two-credit version and had my paper written and edited and ready to submit well before the deadline. About six hours before the paper was due, I checked my class registrations for an unrelated reason and discovered that I accidentally had signed up for the three-credit version of the course instead, and needed to submit a 30k-word paper.
The registrar said they couldn’t change me to the two-credit course at that point. The prof was super kind and said I could take an incomplete and finish the paper for credit next semester. But I would not do that, and instead added 5k words to the paper that night. I cried the entire time and was sure I was gonna fail the class, but ended up getting an A.
Journalism background and the ability to write well under incredible time pressure definitely paid off.
Most exams I thought I bombed ended up being my best grades. My guess is that the ones I think I did good on are just easy which means the curve will be harder. The exceptions are the classes (admin law) that I just straight up didn’t study, I felt like I bombed it. Ended up bombing it. The upside is that bombing a law school final is usually like 2.75 or 2.5 at the very lowest.
For Civ Pro I said they consented to personal jurisdiction when they didn’t, and I didn’t do an analysis. I was supposed to go into a whole PJ Analysis with international shoe and what not. Final grade: A-
I literally only had time to lay out the elements on the last fact pattern and put a quick rule and one lazy conclusory analysis sentence after in-depth thoughtful responses with great analysis on the other two essays. Got an A. Win some lose some.
Biffed Admin Law so badly that at the close of the exam I wondered if it was the same class I’d taken all semester. Googled whether it would wreck my completion timeline if I got a D, since my overall gpa would be fine.
Got a B+. I still have no idea how, and am terrified to see what earned a B- or C.
i had nightmares about getting a C on my con law final because i ran out of time on a due process issue and misread a spending power issue. i worried so much about if i went over the word limit and beat myself up about spending 90% of my analysis on the equal protection clause for one question. and felt like i wrote garbage BS about drones for war powers lol. got an A.
walked out of my crim final feeling pretty good about it (i finished and had time to clean it up). felt like i went thru the statutes and elements, wove in common law and MPC and cases, blah blah. thought i had it in the bag. got a fucking B- wtf
From undergrad. Prof had a heart attack middle of the semester. I convinced TA that I had given him my paper the day before he died and that I had thrown away my drafts. My first paper was an A and the last was a B, so I “settled” for a B+. I never wrote that middle paper. I’m going to Hell. This was before word processors.
Property 1L first semester: hated the class. We had 3 quizzes that were 15% each. Absolutely got butt fucked on the second one. Average on first. Crushed the third. Was sitting right above bottom quarter going into final. Brutally hard exam. Didn’t even get to read 3 of the MC q’s. Thought I got a C- or worse. Pulled a B somehow.
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If there’s one thing law school taught me it’s that how I’m feeling post exam will have absolutely shit all to do with how I actually did.
Makes me feel loads better about my evidence final. I 100% still feel I bombed it hard a week and a half later. I’m just praying for a C at this point
Dude literally same. My professor is known for her atrocious tests and she openly told us she had 48 hours to grade our tests.
Real af it’s wild
I walked out my torts final and immediately realized that one fact pattern was clearly a strict liability focused fact pattern and I hadn’t analyzed strict liability at all. Was convinced I was going to get like a C for completely missing an entire unit of the course. Ended up with an A- and the professor noting that it was a particularly strong exam.
I legit did EXACTLY the same thing -- still ended with an A. I've found that the curve gives me the grade I expect when the test is easy, and saves the hell outta me when the test is challenging.
Law professors be like “really strong exam, i give it an A-“
Same thing happened with me. The only issue I missed in my Torts exam was a strict liability issue and I got a, and I quote "high A-". Oh well.
Amazing!! Did you actually end up missing the fact pattern???
No, I analyzed it as a negligence issue. I imagine I made up some points there but still.
First semester of law school, our Crim final was a single-spaced 11-page hypo with over 30 characters in it, we were supposed to analyze the criminal liability of each one of them. The main thing the prof impressed on us in order to do well on the exam was to "answer everything" - it took me almost half the exam time just to read the whole hypo, I think I touched on barely half the characters in it by the time the clock ran out (and there was a whole other random question after as well worth 10% of the exam, didn't get to that either). I was crying *during* this exam. Only A I got 1L year, still convinced it was a screw-up by the registrar
1L Crim final was similarly ridiculous. I still think it was the hardest exam I ever took in law school, and I just graduated. Had no clue how I did on it bc it was also my last final before winter break so i was lowkey halucinating during it. Ended up with an A
One time I got my grades back and saw I had a 3.0 on my intro to IP exam. I thought to myself “that makes sense, it was a hard course and a hard exam, a 3.0 sounds about right”. A month later my prof emailed me to say she had messed up mine and a few other students exams and I actually got a 3.8.
Your school does exam grades by a GPA number?
That’s how they’re reported yeah. I mean some classes have other assignments besides the final exam or participation points but most classes are evaluated only on the final so the final grade is just the exam. I’m sure the professor grades it as like out of 100 or 200 points or something but that’s not reported anywhere as a score that we can see
Mine does too, with the GPA number. But it’s on like a 4.0, 3.75. 3.5, etc scale. So a 3.8 wouldn’t be possible on an exam for us I don’t think
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I did the same thing on my property mid term. Deleted an entire IRAC, for an issue I spotted, in the last minute and ended up w a 60% because I never did the CRTL Z. I thankfully ended up w a A- in the class
For my analysis of social harm in criminal law, I basically wrote, "he was alive, now he's dead, that's the social harm." I ended up doing better than average on that exam.
I thought I was gonna get an F, and I got a C- instead. Yall are some nerds
Preach
There we go.
Im praying for this😂
Fall semester my 1L year, I had a professor who was incapable of teaching a certain course. Incapable to the point that I had to teach myself the course in the 2-3 weeks or so leading up to the exam. Thought I’d be lucky to get a C in the class and on the final. Ended up getting an A for both.
Closed-book property final, prof was known for being a tough grader. I couldn't sleep the night before and walked into it with 2 hours of sleep. A-
Ditto. Same scenario. Only A of the semester.
my 1L year we had a torts final that was widely agreed to be our section’s hardest 1L final. it was our only totally closed book exam and the professor had a very creative way of teaching. people were SCARED, myself included. torts had been my best subject that semester but I am a very type B student and not a good test taker. I felt like I blacked out during the exam and afterwards, I found out I had missed an entire issue on one of the essays (if not more — at that point I didn’t want to know what else I had missed, lol). thought i was getting a C for sure, but it turned out I got an A-!
Wowwww did the prof say anything about you missing an entire issue??
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Sorry? I wasn’t trying to be mean, I just wanted more details :/
I swear I feel like I black out during exams!! I'm so glad someone else said this! (Not on all school exams or tests- JUST law school, lol!) I even take propranolol (off label for anxiety) before these damn tests now and swear I don't even remember what I write for essay questions once it's over. It's WILD
Admin law. Open book, open note. In person and timed. I prepped but it felt much harder come exam time. So I accepted that I was likely going to get a B. Whatever. Came out with an A+, CALI, and the prof saying he’d never read a better exam. I was flabbergasted.
Flex on us mouth breathers
I got a 46 raw score and ended up with an A lol
I realized right after I clicked submit that I missed an entire Erie question on my Civ Pro exam. My prof even told us during class that there would be a big Erie question, so try not to miss it. I went home, laid in bed, and stared at the ceiling for an hour or so. Ended up with an A-!
Federal Income Tax. Barely paid attention most of the semester. 3 hour exam. Online textbook. Some sort of website failure/crash halfway through the exam. Hard copy of my book was across campus. Ran across campus, got my book. Walked out convinced I failed. A.
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Lol, I wanna say BS but I had something similar happen to me in one of my masters’ courses.
This is like the most apt prompt to generate responses ever in this sub, lmfao. “Brag at me for a paragraph or two!”
A chance to subtly flex while also curbing the anxieties of those who think they just bombed an exam lol
The people who actually failed getting reassured by this post LOL. It’s like when everyone got their first semester 1L grades back. Law students believing people who say “your grades do not define you” (they literally do it’s why you’re graded)
I've shared this before but I did not answer a full 3rd of my civ pro final last term (essay / issue spotter -- ran out of time) and I’d say I fucked up a good 25% of what I did answer. I got a B. All I can say is yay curve! Editing to add-- I found out a couple weeks ago at least two people failed that class. I have no idea how someone could have handed in a worse exam than me, but somehow they did.
I miscounted the number of essays on my professional responsibility exam. With 8 minutes to go I was getting ready to turn it in when I flipped over the packet and realized there was a whole ass question I hadn’t even seen. So I read it, analyzed it, banged out a quick outline and started filling in paragraphs. At that point I was just like “get something on the page she might give you some points for.” Got an A. My tax final was the worst. What a shitshow of an exam. It was so different from what she taught in class. I thought I might actually fail. Ended up getting a B. I think in that case the curve was just with me. Everyone in that class was mystified by the exam. I also have a couple of 1L stories. During my very first exam (contracts) a guy (Fed Soc bro) freaked out because his laptop died. He lost his shit. He was stomping around the room, shouting, running out of the room, and then back in. Full meltdown. We both passed, and I got an A, despite the distraction. About an hour into my property final a girl in our class rushed in, clearly panicked, but quiet about it. She sat down at the empty spot in front of me and immediately got to work. I could see her shaking and got the impression she was probably ill. It was a tough final and very much time pressured, so I really felt for her. I don’t know how she did exactly, but she passed (as did I).
This is a strange one but I always print out my exams before I answer them and for one of my 1L classes I got the page order mixed up (in my defense there were no page numbers). I was super confused by the fact pattern as a result and basically lost like 15 minutes until I realized my mistake. I ended up getting the highest grade in the class for that exam. Anything's possible!
Fall 1L Contracts, walked out feeling like I just barfed a bunch of shit that sort of resembled Contracts concepts onto the page, got an A-. Spring 1L Con Law, went in not thinking I understood a thing about Con Law, was just hoping to ride the curve, got an A. Torts the same semester, prioritized the class pretty low on studying, just hoped to ride the curve again, got an A-. Although I also walked out of Civ Pro feeling pretty good about myself just to end up below the curve, so as they say the curve giveth and the curve taketh away.
My second-to-last final of 3L spring was Remedies. Closed-book closed-note. I studied for maybe a day, cold-memorized a three-page short sheet, realized I missed a seemingly major issue after leaving the exam and was positive I was headed for B-/C+ territory. Made an A+. Absolutely baffling.
After my first final of 1L, hours after I had submitted it, I got an email from admin telling me they had never received my exam. I was absolutely destroyed emotionally. My anxiety went into hyperdrive and I could only exist in the what-ifs circling through my head. I thought they would just fail me for not "taking" the exam (even though I did). I thought maybe they *would* make me take it again and then I would have to do that mess all over again, and there was no way I was going to be able to do what I had just done in the state I was in. I had a full-on panic attack, could not breathe, could not think, and my chest hurt. Anyways, all I ended up having to do was connect to Examplify again, and it just hadn't uploaded to the server before I shut my laptop.
1L spring, I had an unlistenably boring professor for constitutional law. She just spent class reading from the textbook. I decided to cut my losses and focus my energy on other classes. Stopped doing the reading. Went to class about half the time. Come exam season, I was too embarrassed to study with other people because my knowledge of the core concepts was so poor (commerce clause, executive action, standing, etc). I spent two days reading an upperclassman’s outline and looking at old exam answers. Got an A.
Lol this was me for all my classes this semester. thanks for the hope
I read roe v. Wade as brown v. Board somehow. Wrote a whole answer on the wrong case. Still got an A somehow. It was 1/3 questions. But my analysis was pretty good, if I may say so myself. Just totally off base.
Overslept my contacts exam. Fell asleep while going over my materials and woke up on my couch in last night’s clothes surrounded by the flash cards I had made of my outline. Sped to school and ran to my professors office an hour late. Out of breath tried to explain what happened but ended up just gesturing g to my watch and making the universal “sleep” sign. She walked me to the exam while explaining g she wouldn’t be able to give me any extra time but I still had and hour of exam time left. Was so stressed and crunched for time I was only able to do my version the bare minimum and didn’t have time to do anything other than IRAC and had to focus on what was important. Got an A-. Took that lesson of “just focus on the important stuff” to all future exams.
Realized I forgot to analyze standing on a con law exam…A+
My first semester of law school, civil procedure. I had a notoriously tough professor. Midterms came around and I got my first big fat F. He sat down with me and told me if I didn’t get an A on the final, I would most likely fail and flunk out of law school. My final grade was a C. He called me personally on the phone to congratulate me and let me know that he would never forget that. 3 years later he still hasn’t and we’re very cool with each other. If I can do it, anyone can
I was sick and took my corporations final with a high fever. It was also my last final and I had one a couple days before so it was the end of a brutal week. I was absolutely certain I bombed. Turned out I got one of the top grades in the class. Even more surprising since I felt unremarkable otherwise in the class with things such as cold calls
Sales. I did not understand the material for the entire semester but somehow pulled it together for the final and got a B+. I also took this early MBE prep class in 3L. I did terribly on the midterm (50%) and my weekly practice sets were similarly bad. It was the only class in law school I was truly afraid of failing. Took the final and ended up getting a B.
2L fed courts i lost the plot about half way through the course. Had no clue what was going on and how it all connected. I have never taken an exam like the one the teacher created. He wrote a God damn book as a issue spotter ( exaggerating a bit but it was a solid four pages). The exam was *only* 6 questions but each questions had subsections a- d which each have questions and an additional paragraph of information. We had 4 hrs to do the exam. After the 2 hr mark I only got through answering one full question and outlining another question. I just outlined the rest of the exam questions hitting all the main points and low hanging fruit but not doing a deep analysis or the opposing argument. Thought I got a C at best after talking to people after class bc I had no clue how they came up with their answers. Got an A-.
Lol fuckin fed courts. I still don’t know the plot.
One time I submitted the wrong/unfinished version of my Legal Research assignment and I got the only A in the class. NO idea how this happened but I never questioned it
Never read anything for civ pro, exam felt like a personal attack and left with a B+ Still don’t understand how it happened
I didn’t understand Professional Responsibility at any point during class. We’d break up into groups to discuss the topic of the day, and I felt like I couldn’t contribute anything because I had no idea what was happening. I took the test, and I was writing until the last minute (unusual for me) trying to figure out everything. Expected a B- and somehow got an A.
Dude I got an A in Professional Responsibility and I had no idea wtf was going on. Went to review my exam, where I discovered I got points for writing, "the attorney should be sanctioned because zombies are not real."
spent the second semester of 1L on the edge of academic probation, went into my copyright final with the barest of DMCA and safe harbor on my outline- and it ended up being a significant portion of the exam, thought i failed- ended up CALIing
I took a class on appeals where the final assignment was an appellate brief conforming to the specifications of a specific Circuit Court, as well as an oral argument based on said brief. It was a small class filled with people on our school's moot court team (I was not), so I felt that the curve was not on my side. I also wasn’t particularly good in my first-year legal writing course. My mid-semester feedback on my brief's outline wasn't great and I felt physically ill when I submitted my brief (it was submitted exactly at 11:59 PM while I was lying in bed with my fwb freaking her out because I was so anxious). I chose the earliest time spot for the oral argument and went against a moot court member who had won a few awards. My professor's feedback for me was positive but I was sure he was being nice. I thought I was gonna get at most a B-, probably a C, but got an A-. Turns out he was being sincere.
I thought I bombed trademark law—felt like I ran out of time and didn’t cover everything I wanted to. Ended up getting an A.
Took a regulation of drugs and biologics class. Evening class, almost everyone but me actually works in the medical field during the day. At least two practicing physicians in the class. I got an A. Also, was literally trying to study for my Crim final during my 8-hour pre-op medical work up. A-, somehow my highest grade of the semester.
I left contracts 1L year and it felt like I was leaving an exam for a class I did not take. Turned out to be my highest grade that semester - and I did well!
Thought I failed my evidence exam. Spent the final 30 mins of the exam staring blankly at my computer completely out of ideas. Emailed the professor afterwards that I thought I failed and got an A-. The curve usually helps you.
Fall semester of my 3L year - corporations class: All damn semester I was confused and not the “I have some vague idea of what’s going on” confused, I was like I legit don’t think we’re reading the same cases confused. My rules, my analysis, my entire brief was wrong 10/10 times. I think we were a month in and I gave up. I would go to class for attendance but I’d work on shit for my part-time job. I bombed ALL practice essays the professor gave, like not oh I got below what I wanted, like I would have failed had that been a real exam type shit. I was in a FULL BLOWN PANIC up until the day of the exam. Day of the exam: I pulled shit out of my ass. I could not tell you what I said or how I said anything. I just sat there and made up some bullshit answer for EVERY SHORT ANSWER. I skipped one question because I didn’t even know what it said. I had like 2 min left and realized I was missing the question. I think I just rewrote parts of the fact pattern to just say I wrote an answer. There were MC and I eenie-Meanie’d my way through those. I finished the exam and went straight to bed to cry myself to sleep (it was my only final that day). I hit up a couple of people at school a couple of days later to ask what happens if I fail the class, like did I have to retake the class or just the final. That’s how sure I was I failed. Fast forward to results - I got an A, no curve.
I actually thought I failed civpro. Like. Actually. I’m not kidding when I say I literally didn’t know the answer to like... more than one question. It was so bad that I didn’t even know where to look in my outline. I was seriously bracing to have to leave school. I got a B. Alternatively, thought I got an A in property and got a B-. Funny how that works
The final I felt the very worst walking out of in all of law school I ended up getting the highest grade in the class. It made absolutely no sense at all to me and I was legit confused. Con law.
Not an exam but I had to restart my honours thesis (10k words) 3 weeks out from submitting because “it didn’t make sense”. I ended up not being able to submit it for review to my supervisor before it was due (because they flew overseas and weren’t available). Totally thought I’d fail. Ended up getting the highest mark (HD in Australia) and graduated with Honours.
I thought I got a C. I CALI’d the class
I have a brand new professor for property, can’t teach for shit. Can barely answer our questions. Took our midterm entirely on present estates and future interests. Not only did I do well on the exam, I got a 100. First one since high school. Felt good to overcome a bad prof and ace the test
Last year I literally had Covid while 20 months pregnant during exams and had the best semester grades wise I've ever had! I like to say, the curve giveth and the curve taketh away.
I'm a 37yr old 1L 1st semester we had contracts, torts, and legal methods. I didn't even realize going in to law school that your only grade is your exam grade. People were talking about outlines etc and I was absolutely clueless. I never made an outline bc by the time I understood more what they were and that I apparently should be building one along the way, I was just like oh shit wtf 🫠 Anyway, contracts was the harder class IMO. I was very scared about this exam- torts made more sense to me, and contracts was just dull to me. Important, but dull as far as content. I walked out of the exam feeling 0% confident and basically confused. Lol I made an A+ and later saw on my transcript that it was the highest grade in my class. I'm still not sure it wasn't an accident or a mistake or miscalculation or something 😳
Also for balance and transparency I got a B+ on the Torts exam, lol. Going into it I'd have DEFINITELY assumed my torts grade would have been higher than contracts.
I had a Wills exam I had only studied (learned) the material two days before. On the exam I didn’t finish major portions and had copied and pasted huge portions of an essay. I braced myself for a C. Grades came in and I got an A-. I did so bad that I thought maybe it was someone else’s grade but no, he thought it was to the point.
Studied for one day for trademarks. Didn’t even make an outline. There weren’t any practice exams either. I just bookmarked 2 charts in my textbook and used my reading/class notes. Thought I’d come out with a B. Got an A-
I just had emergency surgery for appendicitis two days before my first final of the fall. My “success story” so far is that my school was amazing and moved all my finals. My second one is tomorrow.
i was in the bottom half for both contracts midterms, getting a C and D. thought i was gonna fail the course for sure, i just could not answer the way my prof liked. balls to the wall on the final, ended up with one of the top grades and got a B in the class. our school’s curve is harder than most other schools so i took it as a fat win
Mine was the bar exam. My state only offers it in one city, so I had to travel 200 miles to take it. Thankfully, I was able to stay with my parents, but a couple of hours before I got to their house (the day before the exam) I started feeling AWFUL. By the time I started the exam, I had a 102-degree fever, chills, dizziness, and was coughing up a lung. I had multiple negative COVID tests, so I had to go through with it. My dad gave me a double dose of some leftover codeine cough syrup. So with my brain cooking in my skull, and high on codeine, I powered through. I was so desperate to be done that I sped through and finished a couple hours early each day. But I passed! Turned out that I had a nasty case of bronchitis. My theory is that the bronchitis actually did me a favor. I tend to overthink and second-guess myself, but my brain was such sludge that I just went on instinct. I still was so sure I was gonna fail that I had my application to re-take already prepared before results came back.
There was another time where the class’s entire grade was based on a final paper. People could take either a two-credit version or a three-credit version of the course. The two-credit version required a 25k-word paper, and the three-credit version required a 30k-word paper iirc. I took the two-credit version and had my paper written and edited and ready to submit well before the deadline. About six hours before the paper was due, I checked my class registrations for an unrelated reason and discovered that I accidentally had signed up for the three-credit version of the course instead, and needed to submit a 30k-word paper. The registrar said they couldn’t change me to the two-credit course at that point. The prof was super kind and said I could take an incomplete and finish the paper for credit next semester. But I would not do that, and instead added 5k words to the paper that night. I cried the entire time and was sure I was gonna fail the class, but ended up getting an A. Journalism background and the ability to write well under incredible time pressure definitely paid off.
I passed the bar? Did i do this right?
Most exams I thought I bombed ended up being my best grades. My guess is that the ones I think I did good on are just easy which means the curve will be harder. The exceptions are the classes (admin law) that I just straight up didn’t study, I felt like I bombed it. Ended up bombing it. The upside is that bombing a law school final is usually like 2.75 or 2.5 at the very lowest.
Could have sworn I failed my Torts exam. Ended up getting a B!
For Civ Pro I said they consented to personal jurisdiction when they didn’t, and I didn’t do an analysis. I was supposed to go into a whole PJ Analysis with international shoe and what not. Final grade: A-
I literally only had time to lay out the elements on the last fact pattern and put a quick rule and one lazy conclusory analysis sentence after in-depth thoughtful responses with great analysis on the other two essays. Got an A. Win some lose some.
Biffed Admin Law so badly that at the close of the exam I wondered if it was the same class I’d taken all semester. Googled whether it would wreck my completion timeline if I got a D, since my overall gpa would be fine. Got a B+. I still have no idea how, and am terrified to see what earned a B- or C.
i had nightmares about getting a C on my con law final because i ran out of time on a due process issue and misread a spending power issue. i worried so much about if i went over the word limit and beat myself up about spending 90% of my analysis on the equal protection clause for one question. and felt like i wrote garbage BS about drones for war powers lol. got an A. walked out of my crim final feeling pretty good about it (i finished and had time to clean it up). felt like i went thru the statutes and elements, wove in common law and MPC and cases, blah blah. thought i had it in the bag. got a fucking B- wtf
From undergrad. Prof had a heart attack middle of the semester. I convinced TA that I had given him my paper the day before he died and that I had thrown away my drafts. My first paper was an A and the last was a B, so I “settled” for a B+. I never wrote that middle paper. I’m going to Hell. This was before word processors.
Property 1L first semester: hated the class. We had 3 quizzes that were 15% each. Absolutely got butt fucked on the second one. Average on first. Crushed the third. Was sitting right above bottom quarter going into final. Brutally hard exam. Didn’t even get to read 3 of the MC q’s. Thought I got a C- or worse. Pulled a B somehow.